Apple starts work on Prineville datacentre
State-of-the-art facility to support growth of Apple's iCloud service - and is just over the road from Facebook's own facility
Computer giant Apple has started work on its new $68m (£42.4m) datacentre in Prineville, Oregon - just across the road from Facebook's new state-of-the-art facility (pictured).
The datacentre will be located in two 338,000 square foot (31,400 square metres) buildings to the west of the town, with outline plans for more buildings on the site, which it acquired from the local authority, Crook County, for $5.6m (£3.5m) in February 2012.
The $68m budget, though, will only build the first of the two buildings.
The datacentre is intended to run Apple's iCloud service, which was launched in October 2011 and enables users to back up and co-ordinate the content of all their Apple devices. As of July 2012, the service boasted more than 150 million users. ICloud replaced Apple's MobileMe service, which merely synchronised various applications between devices.
The site already hosts a 10,000 square foot (930 square metres) datacentre.
Prineville attracted Facebook - and now Apple - due to its dry air that is conducive to efficient cooling, despite the high temperature. Apple was also able to wring a 15-year property-tax break from Crook County in exchange for a promise to invest at least $250m (£155m) and to employ a minimum of 35 staff.
Apple has also pledged to run the facility on 100 per cent renewable energy, which will come from local hydro-electric power providers.
The state of Oregon also plays host to datacentres from Amazon, Google and Rackspace.
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